


Officer Material

by lucymonster



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Resistance Member Armitage Hux, Resistance Member Ben Solo, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: Since defecting from the First Order, Hux has served the Resistance as a mechanic - a job far beneath his skills as a one-time star pupil of his father's elite officer training program. When a new mission gives him the chance to prove his mettle to General Organa, he jumps at it. But doing so means working with two of his least favourite comrades: Ben Solo and Poe Dameron, the cocky ace pilots who think he's nothing.Hux can't explain why he cares so much about winning their approval. But he never fails when he sets his mind to something. Solo and Dameron are about to learn his true worth, whether they like it or not.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	Officer Material

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kittens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittens/gifts).



A few days before Hux was due to take his officer’s commission, he slipped poison in his father’s drink and ran away. He’s the reason the First Order has been in disarray ever since, as the resulting power vacuum sucks in one would-be successor after another. He’s the reason the Resistance still has a fighting chance. Not that anyone cares. They look at Hux’s service record, his elite Academy training as the son of a top-ranked military commander, his perfect grades in computing and combat theory and astronautical engineering, and they think: mechanic. They toss him a khaki jumpsuit and tell him to look busy at the refuel station until some idiot fighter pilot comes limping in from the black with a blown subalternator for Hux to fix.

Some of them thank him for his work. Most of them do not.

The two he’s working for today are card-carrying members of the Never Say Thankyou Club. ‘Careful with that,’ says Solo – Captain Ben Solo, formally, though Hux will be damned if he ever addresses him by title. He’s loitering while Hux tunes his flight controls, barking instructions as if he has the faintest idea how to care for the sophisticated piece of equipment he treats like a bumper car. ‘It took the last tech weeks to get that yoke positioned right. I want it perfectly centred, zero null zone. Don’t overtighten the stabiliser.’

‘Yeah, he hates having to move his hands to steer.’ Dameron – Commander Poe Dameron, Black Squadron poster boy, impossibly handsome and far too aware of it – leans in to look with his hand on Solo’s shoulder. One day, Hux is sure he’ll get used to the casual way his Resistance comrades touch each other. It hasn’t happened yet. ‘Some say he’s lazy, but me, I call it smart. He’s saving his grip strength for his other favourite pastime.’

Hux briefly considers giving the stabiliser bolt one more turn, just out of spite. But it’ll backfire when Solo comes back hours or days from now to have it loosened. ‘I know how to centre a yoke,’ he says through gritted teeth. ‘Though it would be easier if you both leant back and stopped blocking my light.’

‘The pastime is masturbation,’ says Dameron. ‘I assume you must have missed the joke, since neither of you are laughing.’

‘You techs are always trying to force me back to a standard tune-out,’ says Solo. ‘I don’t care about your arbitrary safety standards – that delay in the null zone is what’s going to get me killed. When I say zero, I mean _zero._ Okay?’

Null zone is what fighter pilots call the mechanical slack between the yoke and the actuators. A small amount of built-in stabilisation is standard to prevent the whole craft from pitching every time the pilot flexes a finger. Essentially what Solo wants Hux to do is make the ship so responsive to the slightest pressure of his hands that a sneeze or an involuntary spasm at the wrong moment could send him spinning off course to his death.

Hux knows, intellectually, that the dismissive way the pilots treat him isn’t personal. It doesn’t help. Sometimes, it makes things worse. He fled the First Order because he was sick to death of his father’s abuse – sick of the system that encouraged it, rewarded it, taught its adherents to take vicious pleasure in being cruel to each other. Hux suffered a lot under that system. But he suffered from a place of high importance, as the son who, however despised and mistreated, would one day take over Brendol Hux’s empire. Now he’s no one. Solo and Dameron aren’t bullies. They’re just self-absorbed hotshots with no time to spare for the interchangeable ground tech team who keep them airborne, and it’s Hux’s job to be okay with it, to accept that as a defector he’s lucky they let him work on the base at all.

He leaves the stabiliser bolt as loose as it’ll go. Let Solo fly himself into the sun, if that’s what he wants. He’ll look like the perfect picture of a hero for the handful of microseconds before he burns.

* * *

‘You were educated aboard a ship called the _Purgator_ ,’ says General Organa one day, when Hux answers an unexpected summons to her ready room. ‘A mobile First Order officer’s academy.’

‘Yes, General.’ His heart is in his throat. Maybe the higher-ups have finally remembered the credentials he disclosed to them on arrival, and realised how utterly wasted he is in the hangar. 

‘We’ve received a message from an unknown contact aboard the ship. A potential informant. I’m sending my very best people to rendezvous there, and I thought you–’

Hux’s heart leaps so high he feels compelled to swallow in case it climbs all the way out of his mouth. Echoes of his father’s voice reverberate in his mind – _useless boy, waste of time, disgrace to the bloodline_ – and he almost regrets that the old man isn’t alive to see him now, ascending on merit alone to join the ranks of the Resistance’s very best people.

‘–could give them valuable insight on what to expect. Anything you can tell us will increase their chances of success.’

Oh. Well, that’s fine too. He doesn’t want to go back to the Academy anyway. ‘Of course,’ he says in the crisp, competent voice that years of officer training drilled into him. ‘Anything I can do to help.’

The ready room door opens again. Two people saunter in, with a ‘Sorry I’m late, Leia,’ and a ‘Hi, Mom,’ respectively. Dameron and Solo. A muscle twitches under Hux’s eye.

‘Call me “General” when you’re on duty,’ General Organa chides, with none of the bite Hux would expect from a senior officer so carelessly slighted by her subordinates. ‘I’ve asked Armitage here to brief you on how to get aboard the _Purgator._ He was there as a student, for a time.’

‘A student?’ Dameron echoes. ‘Wait, that pistonhead’s an ex-Imp?’

‘Imp lite,’ Solo corrects, furrowing his brow at Hux. ‘He’s too young to have served with the Imperials. Must be one of the First Order defectors.’

One of. Hux bristles at the ease with which Solo brushes off his escape from the jaws of his lifelong tormentors, a feat that took Hux every last bit of courage he could muster. Solo might not be as handsome as Dameron or wear quite as high a rank insignia, but he lives like a king among peasants on the Resistance base, fawned over everywhere he goes thanks to the lightsaber dangling from his belt. It’s easy to be a hero when you’ve got magic powers and a parent who runs the whole regime. Hux never had the former, and the latter certainly never helped him get to where he is now. He hates himself a little for how much he wishes Solo could see that.

‘Imperial, First Order, what’s the difference? They’re both trash.’ Dameron’s smirking now. ‘Kind of sexy in those uniforms, though. You still got yours, Imp? Don’t tell him I told you, but our Ben here has a thing for a man in–’

‘Shut the fuck up, Poe,’ Solo snarls, elbowing him.

‘Language,’ says General Organa mildly, as Hux splutters. ‘Armitage, I’m sorry to leave you at the mercy of these charming young men, but I’m afraid I have other meetings.’ She gives Solo a meaningful look, then Dameron. ‘Ben. Poe. This could be the break we’ve been waiting for. I’m trusting you two to get the job done.’

It’s not unlike Hux’s assignment in the hangar, after all: the ships wouldn’t be able to leave the ground without his skills, but as soon as they’re up there, everyone forgets. All the credit goes to the hands on the yoke. If he isn’t with them when they infiltrate the Academy, he’ll never hear a word of thanks for the expert advice that got them there. His contribution will go unseen, just like every other contribution the Resistance has ever allowed him to make.

Hux hates being unseen.

But he no longer has an important parent to lift him up in the public eye, and he’s glad of that. It’s time for Hux to be seen on his own merit. Not for nothing did his old tutors call him a natural master of subterfuge and duplicitous tactics. Here’s what he’ll do. He’ll flood Solo and Dameron’s little cockpit brains with the complexity of his briefing. He’ll overwhelm them with elaborate ship blueprints, with baffling and contradictory directions, with minute technical details on every lock and scanner and auto security measure they might need to disable along the way. He’ll make boarding the _Purgator_ sound like such fiddly mechanical work that they’ll beg him to come along and save them from having to remember the instructions themselves.

General Organa is right: she’s sending her very best people on this mission. She doesn’t know who all of them are yet, but she’ll know soon enough.

* * *

The plan works like a charm.

‘You won’t be able to keep up with us in a ship of your own,’ says Dameron, as the three of them cross the hangar to the launch zone. ‘And our starfighters don’t have passenger seats. Guess you’ll have to sit in Ben’s lap for the journey.’

‘Having seen how he likes to fly,’ Hux tells Dameron, as Solo reddens beside him, ‘I think I’d rather sit in yours.’

* * *

Since its early days as a loose coalition of Imperial remnants, the First Order has eschewed tying itself to any particular homeworld. Most of its key strategic functions take place aboard a fleet of massive Star Destroyers in constant flight through the Unknown Regions, large enough to house factories, distribution centres, diplomatic headquarters, and – germane to the present mission – educational institutions. The _Purgator_ was Brendol Hux’s pet project, an antique from the Imperial fleet repurposed as a command academy. His methods were famous for producing hard, cold, unflinchingly obedient officers. He pioneered a number of them on his illegitimate son.

Hux has always assumed being out in the field would cause his training to kick in. Faced with danger, a lifetime of theory would turn effortlessly into practice, and he’d be calm and collected, cutting like a honed knife through their enemy’s plans with his extensive knowledge of tactics and strategy. But as they creep aboard the site of Hux’s childhood misery, reality is slightly different from what he envisioned.

Specifically: he feels sick to his stomach. 

The precise details of the mission are a blur. Hux’s overwhelming experience is of adrenaline, of cold sweat beading on his brow and dripping down his arms, making his fingers slippery as he fumbles with the locks and disables surveillance. But his terror comes to nothing. No one intercepts them. They successfully locate the contact, a young officer cadet whom Hux doesn’t recognise and who, insultingly and thankfully in equal measure, doesn’t appear to recognise him either. On closer assessment, Hux would be surprised if the cadet had the wits to recognise the business end of a blaster. He hardly seems to know what’s going on. His reasons for wanting to betray the First Order are barely coherent. Solo and Dameron do all the talking, a datachip changes hands, and then it’s back to their ships for an uneventful escape.

It doesn’t sit right. It should be harder. Hux spent multiple agonising months planning the death of his abuser and the massive theft of intel that allowed him to ingratiate himself with the Resistance on his way out. It can’t have been as easy as that idiot cadet made it look.

‘Let me see the datachip,’ he says, once they’re safe in the bright blue matter stream.

‘Ben has it,’ says Dameron, inches away. The lap-sitting threat was an idle one, but not by much – Hux is crammed into a tiny storage nook behind the pilot’s seat of his X-wing, so close he can smell Dameron’s hair. ‘Besides, it’s classified data. General’s eyes only.’

‘You’re not even going to look at what’s on it?’

‘Why would I? I’m not an intelligence analyst. My job was to collect the chip.’

‘So you’re nothing but a glorified courier.’

Dameron twists in his seat to look at Hux. The starfighter gives a nauseating lurch as his hands shift on the yoke, but then steadies, pinned to its course by the immense g-forces of the hyperspace tunnel. ‘What’s your problem, pistonhead? We completed our mission. I don’t know how you do it in the hangar, but out here in the fighter corps, we usually call that a reason to celebrate.’

He must use the same shampoo Hux does, the blue foamy one that smells like run-off laundry water. On Dameron it smells more like the linen that came out of that water, clean and cool. Hux refuses to let himself find it pleasant. ‘That “mission” was far too easy to deserve the name,’ he says. ‘Trust me – I know the First Order. If there’s anything of the slightest strategic value on that datachip, there is absolutely no chance the cadet’s commanders aren’t aware of its theft. So why did no one try to stop us?’

‘Ben and I are good at what we do,’ says Dameron, shrugging. ‘Those wannabes never give us too much trouble.’

‘I want to see the datachip. I won’t take no for an answer.’

Dameron gives him a long, amused look. ‘You’re wasting my time,’ he says at last. ‘But I like your chutzpah, so I’ll allow it.’ He flicks a comm switch on his dashboard. ‘Hey, Ben, drop to realspace at the coordinates I just flicked you. Hux here needs a pit stop.’

‘Tell him to hold it,’ Solo’s voice comes back, audibly annoyed down the crackling line.

‘Come on, he doesn’t fly often. Let’s be nice.’

Hux grits his teeth. He’s endured far worse mockery in pursuit of his goals. He’d truly hoped the Resistance … but never mind. He’s getting his way. That’s what matters.

* * *

They land on a quiet orbital spaceport on the outskirts of what looks to Hux like some sort of asteroid mining operation. While Solo and Dameron continue to trade puerile jokes at his expense, he’s able to take a close look at the datachip and confirm his suspicions: it was indeed too easy.

‘Here,’ he says, pointing at the telltale spot on the chip’s underbelly. He wishes the two wouldn’t loom so close to him. Their eyesight must be fine if they’re allowed to fly, and their proximity does strange, squirming things to his insides. ‘This micro-scomp came straight from the First Order’s Security Bureau. It’s designed to inject malicious code into any droid or computer that attempts to read it.’ 

Dameron frowns at Hux. ‘So you’re saying…’

‘The First Order let you acquire the datachip on purpose. Best case scenario, it contains a simple communications slice that would let them spy through the infected device. Worst case scenario, it could bypass firewalls and compromise the entire base’s computing system.’

‘Then our informant…’

‘Double-crossed you, obviously,’ says Hux.

‘No.’ Solo’s frowning too. ‘I didn’t sense any deceptive intent. He believed he was giving us something of value. That means he’s in danger too, if his superiors know he’s trying to help the Resistance.’

There are a lot of names Hux could call Solo, but he wouldn’t have picked naive for one of them. ‘I assure you,’ he says, ‘the First Order’s ranks are full of extremely accomplished liars.’ He himself used to be one of them. He chose to use the power for good, to get himself out. Most didn’t. ‘Just because he seemed sincere…’

‘You have no idea how the Force works. Don’t try to tell me what people _seem._ I see things you don’t.’

‘Simmer down, Ben,’ Dameron says. He turns to Hux. ‘Listen. Ben’s the most paranoid, bad faith son of a bitch I know – no offence to Leia. If he trusts this guy, then he’s right. It’s a Jedi thing. Which means it’s our duty to get back there and make sure he doesn’t pay the ultimate price for trying to help us.’ He says it calmly, as though flying back into the jaws of death is no big deal. With a rueful glance at the datachip, he adds: ‘Any chance there actually is useful intel on that thing? I’d hate to have wasted the fuel.’

‘No,’ Hux says simply. In truth, he knows very little about the workings of the shadowy Security Bureau – no one does, outside the Bureau itself. But he’d bet his life on their having scrubbed everything of value off the chip while they were installing the micro-scomp. ‘However…’ He’s thinking fast, brain whirring at a speed more exhilarating than anything Solo and Dameron have ever achieved in their flying deathtraps. The infiltration of the _Purgator_ was terrifying. This? This kind of logic puzzle, this subtle game of cunning, is fun. It’s what he trained for. It’s what he excels at, as the Resistance is finally about to learn. ‘It isn’t without value. I believe that with the use of this chip, we can turn the trap against the people who set it. I have a plan.’

He talks them through it. He doesn’t expect either of them to fully appreciate its brilliance, since it doesn’t involve any laser fire or dangerous sublight maneuvers. Their reactions, though, take him by surprise: not confusion, but open disgust. 

‘You’re out of your mind,’ says Dameron. ‘You want to gamble our informant’s life for a chance to … what? Mildly frustrate our enemies? Maybe that shit would have flown with your old boss, but it’s not how the Resistance plays.’

Inside, Hux reels like he just took a punch. But outwardly, he maintains his well-practiced composure – he’s used to taking punches. ‘This risk is exactly what the informant signed up for when he reached out to you. Besides, he’s safer than you think. As I already explained: the Security Bureau believe they’ve established a link to the Resistance through that cadet. It’s in their interests to keep him alive and let him think he’s gotten away with it, so that he might be used in future sting operations. And it’s in _our_ interests to let them persist in that delusion for as long as possible.’

‘Poe's right.’ Solo bites his lip. ‘The risk...’

‘I thought you liked risks,’ says Hux. He's right. He knows he's right. He just needs them to see it. ‘You're the one who insists on flying his ship with every single one of the automated safety features turned off.’

‘Yeah, I risk my neck. But I do it so other people don't have to. Our contact has no idea he's in danger, and if we don't get him out of there, who knows what your old buddies will do to him?’

‘Don't,’ says Hux, voice dropping to a whisper as his throat constricts in fury, ‘call those First Order swine my _buddies_.’

No apology. Typical. ‘A man's life is at stake,’ Solo says, like it's the final word in the argument - like there's nothing Hux can possibly say that could trump such a point.

This is Hux's chance to win the respect of his new Resistance allies - quite possibly his only chance - and it's going to be taken away from him because Solo and Dameron are worried about one measly officer cadet who, intentions notwithstanding, has done nothing but endanger them. The unfairness of it sticks in his craw. ‘Most of the real risk will fall to whoever stays on the ground to spring the trap,’ he says, playing the only card he has: the near-compulsive enthusiasm these men have for staking their own lives at every possible opportunity. ‘Meaning one of you.’

Solo and Dameron look at each other. It’s like an invisible cable stretches between them, transferring data Hux can’t see. 

‘Meaning all three of us,’ says Solo at last. ‘You want to play sabacc with people’s lives? Get ready to stake your own. If we go through with this - _if_ \- you're coming too, to make sure the plan goes off exactly how you envision it. It'll all be on you. One wrong step, one hint of suspicion that we’re onto them, and our guy’s as good as dead. So you’d better be damn sure your plan is going to work.’

It's no longer an outright no. That's progress. ‘If you’re willing to give me the chance,’ Hux says crisply, ‘I’d love nothing more than to take personal ownership of both this plan’s execution and its success.’

They look at him. Then at each other. They don’t say anything. But Hux thinks – he _hopes_ – he has just won a small measure of their respect.

‘I need time to think about it,’ Solo says.

* * *

The plan is simple in its brilliance, and that's why, in the end, Hux wins his case.

The Security Bureau believe they’re the ones running the sting, meaning they’ll be less likely to distrust whatever intel it yields. The conditions are perfect for a red herring operation. When Hux plugs in the infected datachip, he’ll do it on a very particular machine – Dameron’s bright orange astromech unit, a member of the droid spy ring run by General Organa’s doddering old protocol droid. The astromech will be pre-equipped with its own master override codes, which the First Order will never suspect, because they’d never be mad enough to give a machine the power to ignore all instructions from its owners. Hux has his doubts, but he’s apparently the only one. Droid liberation is a bafflingly popular idea among the Resistance, and Dameron won’t hear a word implying anything other than that BB-8 will do its duty.

Instead of executing the spyware’s orders faithfully, it will give the watching Security Bureau a set of coordinates for Solo and Dameron’s next mission – a rendezvous with another asset, it will pretend, although no such person exists. The site they’ve chosen is a world under strict First Order control. If they’re lucky, the fools will trash their own front yard digging for a Resistance infiltrator who was never buried there to begin with. The Security Bureau will gain nothing but believe they’ve come tantalisingly close, making them all the more eager to use the officer cadet in future stings which, again, thanks to Hux’s knowledge of their methods, the Resistance will be able to effectively counter. They’ll have a willing spy aboard one of the most strategically important academy ships in the whole First Order fleet, hiding in plain sight of handlers who continue to believe his betrayal works to their advantage. And BB-8, pretending to be under control of the spyware, will be able to “leak” regular false intelligence.

The only real danger, as Hux has already explained, will be the trip to the First Order world that Solo, Dameron and Hux must make in order to sell the deception as real. But they have a short window of time to wait and steel themselves first, a plausible rest break between missions. Solo and Dameron seem impatient with it. Hux’s nerves need every last second of reprieve he can get.

They camp on the old mining station, from whose long-range communications network Solo – after a long, heated discussion with Poe about whether to give Hux's plan a chance, followed by a shorter one about whether to admit their decision to command in advance or simply go rogue and apologise later – eventually decides to open an encrypted channel to General Organa. Like the two of them when Hux first shared his idea, her main concern is the safety of the informant. ‘It’s a risk,’ Solo agrees with her, his serious dark eyes boring into the general’s hologram. ‘But I've meditated on it deeply, and the Force is telling me Hux is right.’ He has the same look as when he so hotly insisted the informant’s intentions were pure.

In the time between forming his plan and gaining approval for it, Hux has come to a realisation that makes his insides shake: there’s nothing unique or special about this particular officer cadet. So shaped was Hux by his birth environment that, no matter how he dreamed of a kinder world, there were some tenets of First Order philosophy he never even thought to question. When he decided to defect, he assumed he would have to earn his place in the Resistance. He doesn’t regret all those long, dangerous months he spent planning his father’s demise and stealing intelligence he could exchange with the Resistance in exchange for their protection. But what he’s coming to understand is that their protection never had to be bought.

He could have sent a message, just like the officer cadet did. One single message, and the Resistance would have come to save him. Solo and Dameron might have been the ones to fly the rescue ship. They might even have volunteered for the job. Because they care.

Hux has spent his life surrounded by people who really, truly meant every cruel word they ever uttered. He has known thugs who threw their weight around openly and snakes who hid their malice behind friendly smiles. Solo and Dameron are gruff with their peers, disrespectful to their superiors and positively insulting to their subordinates. But it’s all bluster. At their cores, these men are as committed to helping others as most of the First Order are to helping themselves.

His insides squirm when he looks at them. He’s not sure what to do with the feelings he can no longer pretend are simple annoyance at their careless behaviour towards him. What he craves is not a show of better manners from them, a thankyou here, an if-you-please there; nor is it only about his ambitions, his desire to prove himself for the mere sake of ego. What he really wants is to be accepted by them. To be one of them. To receive his share of the affectionate touches and knowing looks they trade so freely amongst themselves. He wants to be able to laugh instead of scowl when they tease him, and then tease them back and make them laugh too. But he doesn’t know how. He’s never had the opportunity to learn.

He’s never allowed himself to think much about what, exactly, the nature of Solo and Dameron’s relationship is. Personal boundaries work differently in the Resistance, he’s observed more than once before. Physical intimacy doesn’t necessarily imply romantic attachment. But he does notice that when they lay out their bedrolls, the two of them position theirs close together. 

And when he wakes later in the night, restless thanks to the rough sleeping conditions he’s not used to, he overhears something that both surprises him and confirms his suspicions: quiet but unmistakable, it’s the rustling, smacking, heavy-breathing sound of the two of them locked in a furtive embrace.

‘Stop gasping like that,’ he hears Solo hiss. ‘You’re going to wake Hux.’

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Dameron hisses back. ‘I know you’ve had a thing for him ever since you saw him bend over to inspect your broken landing strut.’

‘Fuck you, Poe. Don’t say it like I’m a schoolgirl with a crush. He has a nice ass, okay?’

‘That’s true. Man, you have no idea how distracting it was to share a cockpit with that hottie. I could have busted a nut when he climbed on my lap to reach the exit hatch.’

It’s revolting talk. As crass and demeaning as anything Hux has ever heard from them, made worse by the fact that they’re indulging their basest instincts with him right there in the room, like uncultured creatures so used to communal sleeping that they’ve lost all sense of decency. His cheeks heat. His body responds. Mortified and fascinated, he lies stock still and listens avidly as the breathing gets rougher and the rustling movements get more urgent.

Eventually they go quiet again. But he heard what he heard. It takes Hux a long time to settle down enough to get back to sleep, and at least one part of his body remains stubbornly awake.

In the morning, as Solo and Dameron ready themselves for the morning’s perilous mission, Hux leans against the side of Solo’s ship and tries to remember what it felt like in the moments before he took the plunge and killed his father. It took him all his courage. He knew, the moment the poison capsule left his gloved fingers and broke the surface of his father’s drink, there was no going back. His old life was over, his old fears were dead, and an exhilarating new chapter was beginning.

He feels much the same now. Which is ridiculous. The circumstances couldn’t be more different, and yet…

‘I overheard you last night,’ he says when Solo comes close to check his weapons array. Strictly speaking, Hux should be doing a lot of what Solo’s doing himself instead of trusting the pilots and their rough, inexpert field checks. But he can’t concentrate.

Solo turns bright red, some small surviving shred of decency or modesty responding to the voice that Hux has deliberately made sound crisp and stern. He’s had a lifetime’s practice at controlling his outward appearance. There’s no reason for Solo to know how fast his heart is beating. ‘Oh, shit. Uh … I’m sorry. Post-mission jitters, you know. It’s how we burn off steam so we can sleep. We didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfor–’

‘It was appallingly rude,’ Hux says, proud that he’s managed to keep the flush off his own face. Solo may be a Jedi, a pilot, a hero of the Resistance and very nearly as handsome as Dameron, but he has nothing on Hux when it comes to self-possession. ‘I was right there in the room with you.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ says Solo.

‘You could at least have invited me to join.’

They stare at each other for a long moment, gears turning inside Solo’s stupid pilot brain. Hux’s heart is beating so fast he’s afraid it’s going to falter. Solo opens his mouth. Turns to look for Dameron, who’s too far away to overhear or come to his rescue. Turns back to Hux. ‘I didn’t … I mean, we thought you wouldn’t…’

‘There are a lot of things you thought you knew about me,’ says Hux. ‘You thought I was just a mechanic, and now here I am masterminding a mission that puts your survival and Dameron’s in my hands. So perhaps it’s time to let go of your preconceptions.’ He allows himself a long exhale through his nose. ‘Heaven knows I’ve had to let go of enough of mine.’

Solo’s face breaks into a lopsided grin. ‘Alright,’ he says, eyes glinting with an excitement that has made short work of his temporary abashment. ‘If you want to let us make it up to you, we sometimes like to blow off steam _before_ missions, too.’

* * *

Hux’s plan goes off without a hitch. The First Order takes the bait, the officer cadet is established as a double agent too valuable for his oblivious Security Bureau handlers to kill, and Hux receives a commendation from General Organa herself. ‘I’ve hesitated to put you in harm’s way,’ she says. ‘After everything you went through with the First Order, I know how hard it must be for you to face them in the open. But your service on this mission was exemplary. If you’re willing to spend more time in the field…’

‘General,’ he says, holding his chin up with his hands folded behind his back in perfect officer’s posture, ‘nothing would make me prouder than to go wherever I can most be of use.’ Privately, he adds: _as long as you send me with a skilled soldier or two to take any fire._ But he’s fairly sure that goes without saying.

Solo and Dameron never do thank him. But they do enough other things with their hands and mouths and bodies that it no longer bothers him like it used to.


End file.
